Despite government-led regulations to rein in the real estate market, luxury residence prices in Seoul shot up nearly 25 percent on-year in the first quarter, marking the fastest rate of growth worldwide.

According to a report on the Prime Global Cities Index by UK-based real estate data provider Knight Frank, which analyzed houses that ranged in the upper 5 percent in terms of prices in 43 global cities, house prices in Seoul showed the fastest growth rate, five times the average growth rate of 5 percent.

(Knight Frank)

Knight Frank said that various state measures including higher taxation targeting multiple home owners have curbed the heated Seoul real estate market. However, strong speculative trading remains in the Gangnam market.

Seoul ranked seventh in the third quarter and third in the fourth quarter of last year.

Seoul (Yonhap)

In the first quarter of this year, Cape Town in South Africa ranked second after Seoul, with a growth rate of 19 percent. Guangzhou in China, which had been at the top of the list in the second half of last year, followed with 16 percent.

Another Chinese city, Shanghai, came in at joint fourth place with Germany’s Berlin, with a growth rate of 11 percent.

Paris, Madrid, San Francisco, Sydney and Melbourne rounded out the top 10.

Hong Kong, New York and London -- three cities notorious for their real estate prices -- ranked 13th, 27th and 35th respectively in terms of the housing price growth rate in the first quarter.